Read Online Tropical Secrets by Margarita Engle - Free Book Online Page B

refugees.
    Â 
    The ice cream is charity,
my melting breakfast
and messy dinner.

    Â 
DANIEL
    Â 
    A girl with olive skin and green eyes
helps David pass out festive plates
of saffron-yellow rice
and soupy black beans.
    Â 
    The girl has wavy red ribbons
woven into her thick black braids.
She glances at me, and I glare back,
trying to tell her to leave me alone.
    Â 
    The meal is strange, but after two days
of ice cream, hot food tastes good
even in this sweltering
tropical weather.
    Â 
    My coat is folded up beside me.
I am finally wearing cotton clothing,
cool and comfortable,
a shirt and pants donated
by strangers.
    Â 
    What choice do I have?
I still cling to my dream
of a family reunion
in snowy New York,
but in the meantime, here I am
in the sweaty tropics,
struggling to breathe humid air
that feels as thick as the steam
from a pot of my mother’s
fragrant tea.

    Â 
DANIEL
    Â 
    The girl asks me questions
in Spanish
    Â 
    while the ice-cream man translates
into Yiddish.
    Â 
    Back and forth we go,
passing words from one language
to another,
    Â 
    and none of them are my own
native tongue, Berlin’s familiar
German.
    Â 
    Still, I am grateful
that Jews in Europe
all share Yiddish,
    Â 
    the language of people
who have had to flee
from one land to another
more than once.

    Â 
DAVID
    Â 
    I am glad that I have plenty
of ice cream and advice
to give away
    Â 
    because what else can I offer
to all these frightened people
who are just beginning to understand
    Â 
    what it means
to be a refugee
without a home?

    Â 
DANIEL
    Â 
    David says that removing my coat
was the first step
and accepting strange food
was the second.
    Â 
    Now, he wants me to plunge
into the ocean.
Others are doing it—
all around me, refugees wade
into the island’s warm
turquoise sea.
    Â 
    David insists that I must learn
how to swim, if I want to cool off
on hot days.
    Â 
    He speaks to me with his hands dancing
and his voice musical, just like the islanders
who sound like chattering
wild birds.
    Â 
    I find the old man’s company
comforting in some ways
and troubling in others.
    Â 
    He is still Russian, still Jewish,
but he talks like a completely
new sort of person,
one without memories
to treasure.

    Â 
DANIEL
    Â 
    The city of Havana is never quiet.
Sleep is impossible—there are always
the drums of passing footsteps
and the horns of traffic
and choirs of dogs barking;
an orchestra of vendors singing
and neighbors laughing
and children fighting. . . .
    Â 
    Today, when I ventured out by myself,
one beggar sang to me
and another handed me a poem
in a language I cannot read,
and there was an old woman
who cursed me because I could not
give her a coin.
    Â 
    Some words can be understood
without knowing
the language.
    Â 
    I lie awake, hour after hour,
remembering the old woman’s anger
along with my own.

    Â 
DANIEL
    Â 
    Perhaps it is true,
as my father used to say,
that languages
do not matter as much
to musicians
as to other people.
    Â 
    My grandfather was always
able to communicate
with violinists from other countries
by playing the violin,
    Â 
    and when a French pianist
visited our house, my parents spoke
to him with sonatas,
    Â 
    and when an Italian cellist
asked me a question,
I answered him
with my flute.

    Â 
DANIEL
    Â 
    All I want to do is lose myself
in dreams of home,
    Â 
    but the Cuban girl who brings food
keeps asking me questions
in Spanish.
    Â 
    I try to silence her
by drumming my hands
against the trunks of trees and vines
in the courtyard
of this crazy,
noisy shelter.
    Â 
    My impatient rhythm is answered
by cicadas and crickets.
    Â 
    If I could speak Spanish,
I would remind the girl
that I am not here in Cuba
by choice.
    Â 
    I have nothing to say
to any stranger who treats me
like a normal person
with a family
and a home.

    Â 
DANIEL
    Â 
    Weeks at sea
introduced me to a new
kind of music,
    Â 
    endless and constant,
sung by a voice of air